


How to Transform Your Life Through Reality TV

by igrockspock



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Backstory, Cooking, Food, Friendship, Gen, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-20
Updated: 2015-06-20
Packaged: 2018-04-05 08:43:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4173372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrockspock/pseuds/igrockspock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Playing truth or dare with Tony Stark is a dangerous game.  Before she realizes what's happening, Natasha's drunk and auditioning for a reality cooking show with a pot of her grandmother's borscht.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to Transform Your Life Through Reality TV

**Author's Note:**

> This story started out as my own personal spin on an AU scenario, where a character stays in the canon universe but decides to do something like work in a bakery or open a coffee shop. For some reason, I decided to make it about Nat auditioning for a reality cooking show. Since I didn't finish it before Ultron came out, it's now a little bit of a canon-divergent AU. Clint's bacstory doesn't match the movie version, but the rest fits surprisingly well -- not that tht really matters, since Nat going on a reality show is never going to be canon anyway.

"Why are we playing Never Have I Ever with Tony Stark?" Natasha asks, surveying the empty glasses arrayed in front of them. They'd finished with the beer long ago. Now they're onto tequila, but only because Stark had said that vodka would give her an unfair advantage.

"Well, Tony is one of the few people we know who doesn't want to kill us or arrest us, so sometimes we do things just because he wants us to," Clint says, sounding patient even though Natasha has asked the question at least five times today.

Stark looks smug. "Never have I ever fucked anyone while splattered with the blood of my slain enemies," he says.

Clint and Natasha clink their glasses, and Stark shakes his head.

"You two," he says, pointing at them with a wavering index finger, "are freaky."

"And this game is ridiculous," Natasha says. Neither she nor Clint can name a sex act that Stark hasn't performed, and Stark can't name a disturbingly violent act that they haven't performed. The end result is that Clint and Stark are wasted at two o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, and even Natasha -- who is Russian and grew up buying vodka from vending machines on subway platforms -- is mildly intoxicated. "Why can't three children of alcoholics drink themselves into oblivion like proper adults?" she asks.

"You're right. It is a stupid game, Nat," Stark says. Natasha glares at him, but he doesn't even flinch. "Don't look at me like that. Okay, look at me like that all you want. I'm going to call you Nat anyway." He pours himself another shot of tequila. "We're doing truth or dare now. You get truth, Romanov."

"That's not how the game works," Natasha protests.

"That's not a drinking game," Clint says. 

Stark looks at Clint first. "One, Nat is letting details slip about her past, so I can only assume she's so wasted she's going to get alcohol poisoning." He sets Natasha's empty shot glass aside. "Two, you and I can drink as much as we want." He fills Clint's shot glass to the brim.

Clint turns to Natasha. "Three, Nat, you don't want to take a dare. Remember the fire last time?"

"On second thought, you're not cut off after all," Stark says, reflling Natasha's glass. "I want to hear that story. But first, your question: when was the last time you did something for fun?"

"I've done lots of things for fun," Natasha says. She'd stolen classified military technology from Fort Lee, and she'd shot the Winter Soldier in the eye while falling off an overpass. 

"Non-violent, I mean," Stark says, and suddenly the room goes quiet.

"I dare you to audition for a reality cooking show," Clint says into the silence, and Natasha chokes on her drink.

"What the fuck, Clint?" she sputters. "That was supposed to be a secret--"

"Your secret is that you like reality cooking shows?" Stark asks. His grin his indecently gleeful.

"Among others," Natasha says with as much dignity as she can muster. Of course, she had posted all the others on the internet a few months ago, so now the little ones are the only ones that count.

"Which one is your favorite?" Stark asks. "Wait, don't tell me. I'll figure it out. Next Food Network Star? Nope, you don't want your own TV show. Chopped?" He shakes his head. "One day of competition, not enough challenge." He narrows his eyes. "The Taste. ABC. A culinary fight to the death between home cooks and aspiring celebrity chefs, mentored by epicurean legends. _That's_ you." He leans in closer. "Natasha Aliana Romanov, I double dog dare you to audition for The Taste."

"You know jack _shit_ about me," Natasha says, loading her voice with as much venom as she can muster.

Clint sprawls backward onto the floor, grinning crookedly. "He figured out one thing about you. You can't back down from a dare."

***

The application is surprisingly easy, even though she's drunk.

_Have you been charged with or convicted of any crime (felony or misdemeanor)?_

Surprisingly, no. She writes, "I have been called to testify before Congress but was never indicted. Regrettably, the statute of limitations has not yet passed."

_Name up to five people who would accompany and support you if selected for auditions._

She write's Clint's name first, and then Stark elbows her out of the way and finishes the list with his name, Pepper's, Steve Rogers, and Sam Wilson.

"That oughta get their attention," he says, slapping her on the arm.

Natasha glares but doesn't erase any of their names.

The next question says _what are three of your signature dishes?_

The truth is bland: ration bars dipped in peanut butter, various salads. She fills in Morroccan braised bull testicles, borscht, and ghost chilli curry on the three neat lines.

"You know how to braise bull testicles?" Stark asks.

"Don't be stupid, Stark," she snaps, shooting him a withering look. She knows a lot about food, but she's an expert in telling people what they want to hear -- including, apparently, the producers of reality shows.

Clint looks over her shoulder and grins. "You want Bourdain's team," he says.

"You know no such thing," Natasha says primly, and clicks on _send_.

Within a week, she's forgotten about the application.

***

Three weeks later, Natasha steps into her apartment and instantly knows someone is inside. Gun drawn, she searches the kitchen first, then the living room. When she reaches the bedroom door, she crouches low, kicks it open, and levels her gun at the shadowy male form at her desk. He raises his hands slowly, and Natasha can practically _hear_ him smirking in the dark.

"Stark." She lowers the gun, even though she's tempted to keep it pointed at his head. "What the fuck are you doing here? How do you even know where I live?"

Stark shrugs. "Your boyfriend told me where _he_ lives, and since you two are kind of scarily connected, I took a guess I could find you here." He glances meaningfully at Natasha's gun and says, "I'd feel a lot better continuing this conversation if you put that away."

Natasha rolls her eyes as she tucks her gun into the holster. If it would get Stark out of here faster...

"You have audition for The Taste and you thought you could hide it from me. But you couldn't. Because I put my name down on your application, and they called me to see if you really did know the great Tony Stark. Stroke of genius, that one. You've been had. I came to gloat."

Natasha leans her head back against the wall. It makes a dull thud, and she wishes suddenly that she'd hit it a little harder. That's what Tony Stark does to her -- make her wish she were beating her head against a wall.

"It doesn't matter, Stark," she says. "I'm not going to the audition."

"Yeah, you are," Stark says. "We had a bet."

"We did not have a bet. A dare is different than a bet."

"Well, we have a bet now. I'll bet you..." Stark pauses, his eyes searching the tiny apartment as he tries to calculate her price. "...one dinner at El Bullí that you go to this audition."

"That place is closed, Stark. I'm not an idiot." She had, in fact, howled in frustration when she had read about its closing. She'd gotten a reservation there once, but then there had been an 084 in New Mexico, and then it was gone.

"Yeah, well, I'm a genuius billionaire playboy philanthropist. And superhero. I can make things happen." Stark stands up abruptly. "Audition's in two weeks. My assistant will text you the location. See you there."

***

Natasha glares at Clint while he brushes his teeth. She keeps glaring as he strips down to his boxers, and doesn't stop when he peels off his socks and climbs into their bed.

He looks back at her without the slightest hint of chagrin. "You know, it's bad for you to go so long without blinking. Dries out the eyes."

Natasha keeps staring. "You know something I can't figure out? How Stark would know how badly I wanted that dinner at el Bullí. As a matter of fact, you were the only person who even knew I had that reservation."

Clint rolls over and props himself on his elbow so he can look Natasha in the eye. "You know what I can't figure out? Nobody can ever make you do anything you don't want to do. Dares, bets, whatever -- if you don't want to do something, you don't. Period."

Natasha snorts. "Are you saying I _want_ to audition for this?"

Clint shrugs his shoulders. "I'm saying Red Room took you when you were nine, and they never asked you what you wanted to do. And then you went to work for SHIELD, and you never took a day off unless medical made you. I'm saying it's okay if you want to do something stupid for fun."

Natasha leans back against the pillows and rubs a hand over her face. Apparently this the world she lives in. Nick Fury is dead and comes back to life. SHIELD is HYDRA, and HYDRA is alive but SHIELD is dead. And she, apparently, auditions for reality TV shows. "I guess I'd better learn how to braise beef testicles."

At that, Clint sits up. "You know I'm not going to eat those, right?"

Natasha shakes her head. "They're for Stark. Every last experimental one of them."

Clint sinks back against the pillow, relieved. Then he sits up again. "You're not really going to make the ghost pepper curry, right? Because I think it would actually kill us."

***

The thing about bull testicles is that they shouldn’t be braised. Long cooking makes them fall apart into a gelatinous mess. And, okay, maybe Natasha has read every word Anthony Bourdain has ever written, and maybe he did make her long to try them, but one bite of goo at the bottom of the pot and she’s done. She does pack the leftovers in Tupperware though, and she sends them to Tony by a special courier. Eating _all_ of her experiments is part of their deal.

After that, she considers braising a bull penis because it would have to be tough enough to stand up to long cooking, right? But a quick google search reveals that cow dick is so tough it’s mostly used to make dog treats, and not one food blogger had succeeded in making it edible. So bull genitalia is a no go, which means she has to figure out something else so startling it will lure in Tony Bourdain. Not that she’s taking this process _seriously_ or anything.

***

Clint is right about ghost pepper curry: it _does_ almost kill them. Or at least, it has Clint and Tony shitting fire for a day. Natasha didn’t eat any herself. After chili fumes had forced her to open all the windows on a cold February day, she’d decided ghost peppers didn’t belong in her digestive tract. Clint and Tony, however, had felt that they weren’t men if they didn’t eat a whole bowl. Or something.

Pepper had come to collect Tony from the bathroom floor an hour ago. Now Clint is lying on the couch, drinking Pepto-Bismol straight from the bottle.

“Can you OD on this?” Clint asks, peering at the directions on the label.

Natasha takes the bottle from his outstretched hand. “You drank half of it?” she asks, raising her eyebrows. “I don’t think you’ll die, but you might not shit for a week.”

She caps the bottle and returns it to the bathroom over Clint’s anguished whine. Then she goes back to the kitchen and stares at the bundle of beets on the bottom shelf of the fridge. They’re the plain old purple kind, purchased from the Union Square Farmer’s Market two days ago. The woman at the stall had assured her that other, better kinds were available: gold ones, striped ones, variegated bundles of orange and yellow and purple. But Nat had only wanted the ordinary ones, and as soon as she brought them home, she buried them behind a tower of yogurt.

“Are you about to make a pot of memories and sadness?” Clint calls from the sofa.

Natasha shoots him her best glare. “Fuck you,” she says, but it’s missing the heat. 

Her first two signature dishes had failed. Now she has a choice: she can drop out of the auditions, or make the pot of memories and sadness that most people know as borscht. She pulls the beets out of the fridge with a sigh. Memories and sadness it is, with a side order of how the fuck did Tony Stark guess how much she wanted this?

***

Her grandmother's cooking, and the stories that go with it, are among the few things that Natasha can remember from her life before Red Room. Of course, there's no useful information embedded in those memories, like what her name was, where she was from, or what her parents had looked like. There's just an old, old Jewish woman who had loved her granddaughter and shown it with home cooked peasant food. The memories are just enough to keep her going on her worst days, but they're so full of holes she avoids thinking about them unless there's no other way to survive. When the Winter Soldier had shot her, a part of her had believed she ough to die, but she'd pressed her hands against the bullet holes and remembered that someone had once spent a whole day making a pot of soup just for her, and she owed it to that woman to surive. Now, she mostly makes borscht on Yom Kippur because the Day of Atonement sounds like the right time to torture herself by remembering a more innocent time in her life.

And now she's making _khalodni borscht_ for a reality show. She hadn't even known she had a recipe for cold borscht until the audition materials had warned her that she'd be standing in line for hours and the food wouldn't stay hot. Without even thinking about it, she'd reached for cucumbers instead of cabbage, chicken stock instead of beef, and sliced a hard-boiled egg on top. 

Clint had eyed the concoction warily. It was a pale shade of purple, and beets were stretch for a man who lived on pepperonis and ramen. 

"It can't be worse than Army rations, right?" he'd said and swallowed it in one smooth gulp like a shot of vodka. Nat wasn't sure how he'd managed to swallow the beet chunks and eggs without chewing, but then, Clint could do a lot of things that would kill other people.

Tony had declared it delicious, which was irrelevant because Nat didn't care about his opinion anyway. He alternates molecular gastronomy with burgers and fries, and throws in a juice fast whenever he decides it's important to have six-pack abs. In food as in everything else in life, Tony Stark is a man of questionable taste.

Anyway, she hardly needs the soup to get on the air. She approaches the camera test with downcast eyes and murmurs something vague about her Jewish grandmother, immigrating to America, and Tony Stark. The producers barely taste her soup, but the callback comes the next day. Natasha Romanov is good TV; that wouldn't change even if she'd arrived with a basket of soggy Pillsbury crescent rolls.

***

The trouble with The Taste is that you only ever get an hour to cook, and Nat is confused about how anyone could develop flavor in such a short time frame. She might be the queen of tossed green salads and quick vegan stirfry, but that will get her kicked off in week one, and Nat doesn't play to lose.

"Glad to see you're not taking this seriously," Clint says when she comes home with five different pressure cookers.

Natasha grunts a vague acknowledgement, and Clint picks his way between the packages, inspecting each shopping bag in turn.

"Williams-Sonoma?" he asks, eyebrows raised.

He lifts the pressure cooker out of the shopping bag. It comes in a blue and white striped box. Martha Stewart's picture might or might not be on the side, and Natasha might or might not have gouged her eyes out.

"This is going to make a really expensive bomb," he says, looking at the receipt. Natasha glares at him, and he responds with an innocent stare. "Oh, sorry, are these for that cooking show you don't really care about?"

Natasha perches on the edge of the kitchen table. The pressure cookers are neatly arrayed behind her.

"Listen, I'm going to make you a deal," she says. "You don't make a big deal out of whether I want this -- which I _don't_ by the way -- and I'll let you blow up the pressure cookers I don't like."

Clint narrows his eyes. "Promise I get at least three of them?"

"Deal." Natasha holds out her hand solemnly and Clint shakes it, but then his face breaks into a grin.

"So long as you know the _real_ pay off is watching you be a shitty liar for once in your life."

Natasha's still holding onto his hand, and she uses it to yank him off balance, sweep him to the floor, and sit on his back. It's not mature, exactly, but it's not her fault that Red Room hadn't supplied her with a model for functioning adult relationships.

***

The day before the live auditions, Nat contemplates her closet.

"Clint, what do you think I should go as?" she asks. She holds a floral printed cardigan up to her face, then trades it for a Black Sabbath t-shirt.

" _Go as_?" Clint asks. "You're not undercover, Nat. You gave them your real name."

"Well, yeah, but I still need a persona," she says. Who goes on TV without one of those? "I could go seductress, but the dresses are a little binding." She shrugs her shoulders, reaching for a red strappy number. "Of course, I've done harder things in this dress than cook."

Clint grins, and Natasha sighs.

"That was _not_ a reference to your dick," she says. 

"I was thinking about Nagasaki. That was a good fight," Clint says, still grinning. He looks a little wistful, and Natasha feels a pang of sympathy. He misses SHIELD; they both do. And only one of them has a reality cooking show as a distraction.

Clint gets off the bed and puts the dress back in the closet. "Nat, do yourself a favor and go as yourself. You're pretty awesome, you know. And if you really think you need a persona to win, ex-assassin turned chef is a pretty good one."

Natasha swallows, rolling the words over in her head: _you're pretty awesome, you know_. 

"Fine," she says, turning away from Clint before she gets too emotional. "But I'm still taking the hair straightener."

***

The live auditions are a blur of lights and microphones and stressed out people with whom Nat has nothing in common. She sticks to the back of the studio as much as she can, arms crossed over her chest, fingers drumming idly on her leather jacket. Clint had been right; going as herself had been a good choice, if only because nobody wants to speak to someone wearing black leather pants and an empty holster. Too bad the producers had taken her knife; then she could have had the others _really_ spooked.

She draws the last audition group, a dubious blessing. Each of the four mentor chefs gets a team of four. If they've filled up their groups before she cooks, she's screwed. On the other hand, if they have a space left, they'll have to take her, even if they don't want to. She toys with the little arrow charm around her neck, wondering if there's a way she can rig the odds in her favor.

When a voice by her shoulder says "you look like a professional," Natasha jumps.

 _Sloppy_ , she chides herself. When had she started letting people sneak up on her?

"Professional what?" she purrs, looking up at a bald, tattooed man in chef whites standing next to her. He frowns, and a food blogger in a fifties style dress looks horrified.

The producers call her for the audition before she can say anything else, and she walks toward the bright lights, shaking her head. She hadn't _actually_ meant for the other contestants to think she's a prostitute with a cooking hobby. 

Once she's standing in front of the stove, she calms down. The other contestants are working frantically, looking baffled by the tangle of lights and microphones and producers asking questions. Nat sweeps her beef shank into the pressure cooker and tosses the camera a smile before she starts cubing her beets. Really, when she thinks about it, _cook borscht in one hour on TV_ is exactly the kind of wacky task that Red Room used to send her way. Granted, the body count had been higher, but it was always _steal a firetruck and disassemble the pump mechanism in forty-two seconds_ or _strangle the chef with your thighs, don't muss your lipstick, and please remember to steal the fish on your way out_. The Taste is a game; it hardly rates.

***

When her soup is finished and plated, a producer escorts her to the waiting room, where a cameraman is waiting to film her joyous reunion with her family and friends. Instead she finds Tony Stark. _Of course_ she finds Tony Stark.

"Where's Clint?" she asks, automatically looking for a perch near the ceiling.

Stark winces. "Climbed something he wasn't supposed to. Security objected and escorted him out. I'm here to support you though." He grins and takes a step toward Nat, acting like he's about to throw an arm around her shoulders.

"You know better than to touch me," Natasha says, and he freezes in his tracks.

"I did bring along Steve in case you weren't satisfied with my companionship," Stark says.

Natasha looks toward the couch in the back of the room, which is mostly filled by a baffled-looking Steve. Sam Wilson is sitting beside him, looking delighted.

"Natasha, why are we in a TV studio?" Steve asks. "I mean, Tony said you needed my help, but..." He gives her a meaningful look, like he expects her to start communicating in code. "Look, I don't see anyone here that the four of us couldn't take out, so if you're being held hostage, just say so."

"Not happening, Cap," Tony says, edging toward Natasha like he's about to touch her again. "Our little spider is auditioning for a reality show. Just like I told you."

"Really?" Steve asks, blinking. Nat can feel the blood rushing to her face, and she doesn't think she's ever hated anyone as much as she hates Tony Stark in this moment.

"Really," she says through gritted teeth.

"I think it's really positive that you've found a way to move on from SHIELD," Sam says, looking so sincere and supportive that Natasha almost strangles him.

Steve gives him a look that plainly says _what the fuck_. He looks back at Natasha for a minute, clearly trying to decide if this is the world's most elaborate prank.

Finally he shakes his head and says, "America sure has gotten weird."

***

When it's her turn to go before the judges, a stage hand escorts her to an elevator that has no doors. Nat's watched both seasons of the show of course; she knows what the set looks like. Even so, she blinks a little when the elevator rises to the stage. The glaring lights remind her of an interrogation room, and the judges are perched on a white dais high above her. It actually reminds her of a villainous lair she'd encountered once. She might actually have been in trouble, except that the criminal mastermind who'd kidnapped her had spent so long explaining how he'd kill her with sharks wearing laserbeams on their foreheads that she'd escaped from her bonds and shot him in the face. Once she remembers that, her heart rate slows down and she smiles at Camera B.

Anthony Bourdain is the first to speak to her, and Natasha's heart skips in her chest once or twice. She can't remember ever feeling this -- well, like a teenage girl, she guesses. She wouldn't know; Red Room wasn't into teenage romance. But she can't help it: she'd only ever read _all_ of Anthony Bourdain's books and seen every episode of No Reservations. The man had balls _and_ writing skills. It turned her on.

"Tell us about this dish, Natasha," he says, and Nat finds it easy to smile -- not the wide, practiced smile she'd given the camera earlier, but the small one she used to lure men into her bed. Oops. Well, Clint had never been angry with her for flirting.

"It was my grandmother's borscht," she says. "My earliest memory is watching her make the stock and cut up the beets. And while she was cooking, she'd tell me all these stories about fleeing from the Nazi invasion. Her family was on the run for three months, all the way to Tajikistan. For the last five hundred miles, they had to travel by camel."

Bourdain's eyes light up, and he studies the show plate of her soup. "Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but borscht is traditionally made with pork stock, but you've chosen beef stock here."

"We're Jewish," Nat says, and it hits her that she's never used the word _we_ to describe herself and her grandmother before. However much she cherished her fragmentary memories, she never thought of her grandmother as part of herself; she'd always belonged to a version of Natasha who no longer existed.

"Simple explanation," Bourdain says, smiling wryly. "Now the ginger is a truly inspired addition. It modernizes the dish without sacrificing its traditional character. How did you come up with that?"

Nat shrugs. "It's how my grandmother made it. Grandma was a bit of an iconoclast."

Actually, Natasha knows no such thing, but it sounds good. She _does_ know that the ginger is such a distinctive addition that when she'd tasted a bowl of borscht with it when she was seventeen, her memories of her grandmother had flooded back. Her grandmother's ginger borscht might not have saved her life, but it probably _had_ saved her soul.

Natasha hears a derisive snort from the end of the judges' table and turns toward its source. Ludo Lefebvre, of course. The so-called impressario of pop-up restaurants. 

Lefebvre crosses his tattooed arms over his chest. "If you are only copying others, you have nothing to offer us. Where is _your_ passion, your creativity?"

"Buried somewhere underneath Stalingrad," she says. It's true. 

She doesn't bother to watch how Lefebvre responds. The man knows his way around a kitchen, but he's a sexist prick, and Nat doesn't care how many critically acclaimed restaurants he's opened. The most she'd use him for is a one-night stand, and she'd be sure to disappear before he woke up in the morning.

She cocks an eyebrow at Bourdain. "Hate to spoil your attempt at suspense, but am I in?"

" _Non_ ," Lefebvre says, lighting his station up with a dramatic red X.

Nat smirks. "Right back at ya," she says and turns away before he can answer. Men hate it when she does that.

Marcus Samuelson is next. Natasha doesn't know much about him beyond his season on Top Chef Masters, but he'd won, so she supposes his opinion might have some merit.

"Sorry, not my style," he says, and the red X appears in front of him.

Nat tosses him a flirtatious wink anyway. He's good looking, in an unusual aristocratic sort of way, and if flirting is her bad habit, she might as well spread it around.

"Your loss," Bourdain says and his station turns green.

Natasha's so preoccupied with her happiness that she forgets Nigella Lawson exists until she hears a warm British voice say, "I'd be honored to have you on my team."

A choice, Natasha thinks. That's interesting. She looks back and forth between Nigella and Bourdain. She hadn't considered that she would have options. Of course, she's spent the last six weeks dreaming about Bourdain, but Nigella Lawson has some appeal. She's gorgeous and warm, but Nat knows there's a steely businesswoman and a capable chef lurking inside, and she's always hated the way the other judges underestimate her because she's nice and a woman. Natasha knows she's not an especially talented chef, but she takes instruction well, and maybe together, she and Nigella could --

But what was it Clint had said? _It's okay if you want to do something stupid just because it's fun._ She's auditioning for a reality show, not crusading against gender inequality in the culinary arts.

"I only came here for you, Tony," she says, turning on her full seductress charm. Marcus Samuelson shoots him an envious look, and Bourdain doesn't bother trying to look abashed.

"Welcome to the team," he says, and Natasha can't help but feel triumphant when she goes to collect her apron.

***

In week one, she makes Nick Fury's meatloaf. The judges declare it pedestrian and uninspired, so Natasha makes sure to say that it was the first thing she ate in America after the security team removed her ankle tracker. She can't actually _hear_ the producers begging the judges not to eliminate her, but she does see them pointing at another contestant and making chopping motions with their hands

The second week is a comfort food challenge, and Natasha dodges the strange organ meat on the kitchen cart in favor of some free-range chicken leg quarters. She seasons them with rosemary, thyme, and some fancy-looking peppercorns, and roasts them in a cast iron skillet with a thick slab of bread underneath each one. Then she stands in the kitchen, sipping a glass of wine and chatting with the producers while the rest of the team eyes her with a mix of suspicion and awe.

Of course, cooking dark meat takes a while -- forty-five minutes of her allotted hour, to be exact -- and that doesn't count the three minutes she'd spent grabbing ingredients or the seven minutes it took to season the chicken and cut the bread. That leaves exactly five minutes to plate her dish after the chicken comes out of the oven.

The camera zooms in on her face. "Natasha, are you worried about finishing this in time?" the producer asks. It's the kind of question that makes the other contestants' palms so sweaty they drop their knives.

Natasha just smiles and slides the chicken off the bone in one long, smooth slice. "It's a chicken, boys, not a bomb."

Her heart is in her throat as she rides the elevator of doom to the stage to watch the judges sample her dish.

"You know, of all the contestants, you are unfailingly the most calm at the judges table," Bourdain says, and Natasha manages a small smile. Her heart might be about to beat through her chest, but she _is_ a professional, after all.

"Let's just say I've met scarier people in worse circumstances," she says. The fall of SHIELD had left her with few certainties about the world, but she's absolutely certain that if she screws up, none of the four chefs in front of her will murder innocent civilians or launch a plot for world dominion. It's liberating, actually.

"Tell us where you got the idea to put a slice of bread underneath the chicken," Nigella says, looking warm and expectant as always.

Natasha shrugs. "I hate to disappoint you, but I read it in a cookbook," she says. Maybe she should have invented a story about her grandmother, but then, maybe it's more important to learn how to tell the truth once in awhile.

"Well, it's delicious," Marcus Samuelsson says.

Tony takes a bite and his eyes light up. "It's like the best toast I've ever had. The bottom is _perfectly_ crisp and caramelized -- maybe just a tiny bit burnt, but in a good way -- and the top is soaked with all that juice and fat coming down from the chicken. Amazing."

Ludo sneers at her. "Your lack of originality disgusts me."

"So does your hair gel," Natasha says. 

It's probably why she wins.

***

Contestants are forbidden to have cell phones on pain of death. Well, actually, it's on pain of dismissal from the show, which most contestants probably think is worse than death. Of course, those contestants don't have access to millimeter thick graphene data receptors courtesy of Stark Industries.

Maddeningly, Tony Stark has programmed only his cell number into the receptor. Even more maddeningly, she calls it from the bathroom, the one place the camera crew is not allowed to follow.

Tony answers on the first ring. He was probably waiting with the phone by his bed, or on his lab bench, or something. Come to think of it, Nat hasn't seen the sun in awhile; reality TV is big on hiding the passage of time. It's kind of like a prison camp.

"Hey, this thing works!" Stark exclaims. "Is there a hologram?"

Nat frowns at the thin filament in her hand. "Is being able to hear you not punishment enough? I'm supposed to _see_ you too?"

"Next time you will be," Stark says, and Nat listens as he rattles of a list of notes for Jarvis. "Okay, back. Spill everything. You having fun yet?"

"If by fun, you mean that nothing has any consequences and I do whatever I want, yes," she says, leaning against the white tile counter.

"Yes, Natasha, that's what _everyone_ means by fun," Stark says. "Are you winning?"

At that, Natasha actually cracks a smile. Thank god Stark can't actually see her.

"I have unlimited access to knives, and I know how to manipulate an audience. I'm practically _made_ for reality TV."

Maybe she'll even write a book: _Alternative Career Goals for Former Red Room Trainees._

***

In week four, Nat scores immunity by successfully butchering a side of beef.

"You've done this before," Bourdain says.

"Not on a cow," Nat answers, and the two remaining members of her team take a not-very-discreet step back.

In week five, Natasha makes the worst dish. It's a dessert challenge, and she doesn't _do_ sweet. Her caramel turns into a burnt mess at the bottom of her Dutch oven, and her homemade flan isn't much good without it. Luckily, that's the week she tackles Marcus Samuelsson to the ground just before a pressure cooker explodes, and the judges agree it would be unseemly to vote her off right after she saved one of their own.

Week six is her demise. The producers blindfold them and force them to select their ingredients and utensils. Nat goes straight for the knife drawer -- memorizing the location of potential weapons is an old reflex -- and unlike the other contestants, she manages not to bump into doorways and shelves. Unfortunately, she had failed to memorize the layout of the pantry, so she blindly shoves some round things, a couple boxes, a flat can, and a very promising bottle into a cardboard box on her way back to the station.

The producer unties her blindfold, and the camera pushes in for a close-up of her face. She has a box of baking soda, four oranges, anchovies and a bottle of vodka. There's also a butcher knife, a cleaver, and four tiny paring knives -- which she knew she had -- but no other utensils. Apparently, she defaults to weapons in the dark.

"Are you disappointed, Natasha?" the producer asks, looking grave.

"This was the best vacation of my life," she says. It was also the _only_ vacation of her life, but she never was made to lie idly on the beach -- or even to play a reality cooking show through to the end. It was fun while it lasted, and now it's time to go home to _actual_ reality.

She makes four plates of orange wedges and rides up to the judges table with a half-empty bottle of vodka in her hand.

***

A sleek black limo is waiting outside the studio, and Natasha isn't entirely surprised when Tony Stark opens the passenger door and invites her inside.

"Natasha Romanov," he says. "Not a moment too soon."

Nat slides across the leather seats, her fingers lingering over the supple fabric. She hates to admit it, but she is a woman who appreciates nice things.

"What's that supposed to mean, Stark?" she asks, pouring herself a glass of champagne.

"You know, the FBI had a pretty interesting case against you," Stark says conversationally. "Funny thing, though, they were _super_ embarrassed about how a high profile terrorist agent was operating inside the country for so long. So, naturally, it was going to be awkward to arrest you in the middle of taping a reality show."

"Get to your point, Stark," Natasha says. She's sure it will be something self-aggrandizing.

"As it would happen, the crack legal team at Stark Industries finished securing your whistleblower protection just this morning. Natasha Romanov, you are officially protected from indictment by any state, local, or national authorities for any crimes you may have committed as an employee of SHIELD." Stark flings his arms open wide like the Pope blessing a crowd at the Vatican. "Feel free to thank me anytime."

"Thank you," Natasha says. It's about the least she can do. Setting up an immunity deal isn't like lending her one of the dozens of spare bedrooms at Stark Tower. It couldn't have happened if he hadn't been determined to protect her. She shakes her head. "I don't know how I can ever repay you."

"So don't." Stark looks more serious than Natasha has ever seen him. "I don't want you to. I've done things too, you know. Things that don't wash out. I don't know who you owe debts to or why, but I'm not on that list."

There's not much Natasha can say to that, so she changes the subject. "Just tell me one thing, Stark. How did you know how badly I wanted to do this?"

Tony smiles wryly. "I might know a thing or two about reinvention."

Natasha opens her eyes wide in mock horror. "God, Stark, are you saying I'm turning into you?"

"Not a chance," he says, smiling. "Can't duplicate me. Don't even try. Seriously, though, just do me one favor?"

Natasha purses her lips. Leave it to Tony to ruin the moment by asking for corporate espionage or a supermodel's phone number. "What do you want, Stark?" she asks.

"Quit it with the red in your ledger," he says, and Natasha's head snaps up. He waves a hand through the air. "Seriously, Nat, I mean it. You don't have to like me if you don't want to, but I know what it feels like to think you're fighting for the good guys and find out later you were just a tool in somebody else's evil plan. You and I both should have known better, but the thing is, what's done is done and you _can't_ pay it back. If soul crushing guilt will make you better at whatever it is you decide to do next, by all means, have at it. But take it from someone who's been there, you can do more good in the world by looking forward than looking back."

Natasha swallows. That might be the kindest thing anyone has ever said to her. _Tony Stark_ just made her feel better about every decision she's ever made in her life. She forces herself to crack a smile. 

"That's the longest thing I've ever heard you say that wasn't about someone's tits. Does that mean we're friends?" she asks.

Tony rattles the ice cubes in his empty whiskey tumbler. "It's probably advisable for you to just accept it. I mean, if you refuse, I can work with it, but you should know I've done some pretty insane things to make people like me."

Behind Tony's rakish grin, Natasha can see wariness in his eyes. He wants her to be his friend she realizes with a start. She'd always known he wasn't close to anyone except Pepper and Clint; she just hadn't realized that bothered him.

"I'm going to need one thing from you first," she says. "It's a big one."

"If it's within my powers as a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist -- and, some would say, superhero -- I will grant it."

"It's probably going to take all of those things. Maybe more."

"I like it. Go big or go home."

"The Department of Homeland Security is HYDRA. I want to take it down."

"Sounds fun. Avengers Assemble, and then we'll go to shawarma," he says, waving an airy hand. "I just need you to say it first."

"Say what?" Natasha asks, draining her own glass of champagne.

Tony rolls his eyes. "You know what."

Natasha sighs and leans back in her seat. She drains the rest of her champagne in one long gulp, then she sits up and looks Tony in the eye.

"You, Tony Stark, are my friend."

"Awesome," Tony says. "Let's kill some bad guys."

***

The dinner at El Bullí never happens; Ferran Adria can't be bought, even by billionaires.

The Taste gets cancelled after Natasha's season airs. 

Both are disappointing, but the destruction of the Department of Homeland Security is acceptable recompense.

**Author's Note:**

> The chicken on bread this is real, and it is AWESOME. It comes from "In the Kitchen with a Good Appetite" by Melissa Clarke. Here's how to do it:
> 
> 1\. Pick out the bone-in, skin-on chicken parts you like te best. I usually do chicken leg quarters, which take about 45 minutes in a 425 degree oven.  
> 2\. Pat the chicken dry, even if it doesn't look wet. This will ensure the skin gets nice and crispy. Rub olive oil on th skin and season it with whatever you like. I usually do fresh rosemary, hot pepper flakes, and salt and pepper.  
> 3\. Cut a thick slice of bread to go underneath each chicken piece. Brush the bottom with olive oil.  
> 4\. Put the bread on the bottom of a thick-bottomed roasting pan with the chicken pieces on top. The bread will burn if the roasting pan is too thin. I find this especially true with glass dishes.  
> 5\. For added bliss, toss some peeled garlic cloves with olive oil and scatter them around the pan.  
> 6\. Bake until crispy. Time varies depending on your choice of chicken pieces. See step #1 for a suggestion.


End file.
